4/30/07: The Joe Jackson Band Beat Crazy (1980)If it wasn’t for that cursed Arbor Day, we could’ve ended two weeks in a row with an album from 1980. We’ve been meaning to talk about
Beat Crazy for
some time, too. Joe Jackson had knocked out two impressive new-wavish albums in the ’70s, but he was still a class clown compared to Elvis Costello. His response was a record with this warning in the liner notes:
This album represents a desperate attempt to make some sense of Rock and Roll. Deep in our hearts, we knew it was doomed to failure. The question remains: Why did we try?Well, at least Joe and his fine band brought some hope to young conservatives.
Beat Crazy opens with the title track, in which our narrator warns that if the Russians ever come, they’ll all be beating bongo drums. Then that innocent fun is balanced with the deadly serious “One To One.” Joe’s trying to romance a woman who’s always out at a Communist demonstration, or running out to a meeting of Vegetarians against the Klan or Every Woman Against Every Man. He doesn’t mind because she’s beautiful when she gets mad—but that might be a sexist observation.
"One To One" was released as a 45 in the UK. The picture sleeve had a smiling Nixon shaking hands in China.
“In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare)” dares to be slightly judgmental, followed by more brilliant tunes of a more innocent nature. “Battleground” brings that to a grinding halt, as Jackson mulls over the futility of a Rock Against Racism concert. It’s back to good humor with “Biology”—possibly the greatest song ever about the romantic double standard—and then a rage against “Pretty Boys.” That song probably seemed like
Beat Crazy’s weakest indulgence at the time. Less so after Duran Duran.
Then the album closes with “Fit”—which was probably more immediate back in 1980, but remains a touching look at how mulattos and transvestites/transsexuals were (and sometimes still are) treated within allegedly progressive communities.
(All of
Beat Crazy’s lyrics—in fact, Jackson’s complete lyrics—can be found at the fine
MondayPapers site.)
The best thing about
Beat Crazy is that Jackson wasn’t kidding about his frustration. He broke up the band and followed
Beat Crazy with
Jumpin’ Jive. A swing album in 1981 was definitely ahead of the news cycle. But the next record was 1982’s
Night and Day, and that produced enough chart hits to keep Jackson around for more decades of great songwriting—although his politics became more predictable. At least he's a strict Libertarian on
one favorite topic.
Make it your own: After being out of print for several years,
Beat Crazy finally got an affordable
domestic reissue earlier this month. The Joe Jackson Band would reunite for
Volume 4 in 2003. He made strong albums through the ’90s, but Jackson’s reunion with the old band has enough energy to sound like a release from 1983. There’s also another sharp take on the uptight gay community with “Fairy Dust”—which might well address a topic that’s
very personal to Jackson.
